If you are interested in learning everything about electricity, you should start by understanding the basic components that make up any electrical design and how they work. Think about how the great pyramids of Egypt were built using just blocks of rock. The rocks themselves were nothing, but when combined with careful design they formed such grand structures!

Similarly, you need to know about the basic electrical components and how they work together to create wonderful modern electrical systems. Below you will find information about the most common electrical components:

The very first component that you should know about is the resistor. It is fairly easy to assume that a resistor, as the name suggests, will resist electricity that flows through it, and you would be correct in that assumption too! Any situation that demands the flow of current to be controlled at a desired level will require a resistor.

Here are two scenarios that better explain what a resistor does. In both cases, we will be turning on a LED:

Scenario 1 – Without Resistor

Scenario 2 – With Resistor

If a resistor is like a cushion that is used to control the flow of electricity, then capacitors are like small rechargeable batteries that store small amounts of charge in them. Capacitors do two things at the same time:

By so doing, they are able to stabilize almost any circuit. There are two types of capacitors that are primarily used:

I briefly alluded to LEDs in the scenarios that were used under “Resistors” above. LEDs are just like bulbs except that they are extremely reliable. You can find them on practically every appliance in your home that features some kind of an indicator light. A typical LED bulb can last decades with no sign of dying.

Since they are so reliable, they are used to indicate the state of current at any point in a circuit. An important task like checking the output voltage or current on a circuit becomes simpler with these light-based indicators.

The resistors, capacitors, and LEDs are the simple stuff in electrical circuits. Now, let us talk about the first complicated component – the transistor. Transistors are used to build complex electrical systems, such as amplifiers for instance. A simple way to understand transistors is to think of a switch. A basic switch has an “on” and an “off” state. These are controlled by the position of the switch, which is changed manually.

A transistor is a more advanced switch that has multiple output states. Unlike a switch, you cannot change these states manually. The only way to switch the transistor between various states is to run current through it. By controlling the current that flows through the transistor, you can control the output state to achieve the results you desire.

When I was a kid growing up in Los Angeles, I never saw a ceiling fan in my friends’ homes. We called them “swamp coolers,” and they appeared as props in movies that were set in the deep South or in Casablanca.

While I never saw a real one as a kid, ceiling fans date back to the late 1800’s, when they were originally powered by water. In 1882, Philip Diehl, the German-American inventor of the motor for Singer sewing machines, adapted his sewing machine motor for the ceiling fan. Electric ceiling fans grew in popularity and were quite commonplace in both America and abroad by the 1920’s. Movies from the 20’s often feature them in restaurants and hotel lobbies.

Between the 1930’s and 1950’s in the U.S., however, the fans went out of vogue. Thus, my lack of experience with them as a child (which dates me as a Baby Boomer!) However, with the oil shortages of the 1970s, we started to wake up to the cost of electricity, and the fans experienced a revival. Since the 1970’s their popularity has gone up and down, but has been in uptrend since about 2000, when energy conservation again became a priority. If you would like to save energy and money, check out how ceiling fans can save energy and money in both summer and winter.

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